UN worries its troops caused cholera in Haiti

A young man suffering cholera symptoms is pushed in a wheelbarrow to St. Catherine hospital, run by Doctors Without Borders, in the Cite Soleil slum in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Friday Nov. 19, 2010. Thousands of people have been hospitalized for cholera across Haiti with symptoms including serious diarrhea, vomiting and fever and at least 1,100 people have died. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)
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A young man suffering cholera symptoms is pushed in a wheelbarrow to St. Catherine hospital, run by Doctors Without Borders, in the Cite Soleil slum in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Friday Nov. 19, 2010. Thousands of people have been hospitalized for cholera across Haiti with symptoms including serious diarrhea, vomiting and fever and at least 1,100 people have died. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)
/ AP

The idea that cholera was imported to Haiti by the U.N. carries unique implications.

For decades, and especially since the Jan. 12 earthquake, Haiti has depended on foreign governments, aid groups and the U.N. for everything from rebuilding to basic services. The U.N. has had five peacekeeping missions in Haiti since 1993, the current one arriving six years ago.

Some Haitians see the peacekeepers as the only hope for security in a nation where towns are ruled by drug lords and coups d'etat are more common than elections. Others resent heavily armed foreign armies on their soil and see the soldiers as a threat to national sovereignty and pride.

The peacekeepers have saved lives in floods and defeated kidnapping gangs. They have also killed people in protests and accidents and had an entire unit dismissed for paying for sex, many with underage Haitian girls.

Earlier this month, Dr. Paul Farmer, who founded the medical aid group Partners in Health and is U.N. deputy special envoy for Haiti, called for an aggressive investigation into the source of the cholera, saying the refusal to look into the matter publicly was "politics to me, not science."

The CDC acknowledges politics played a role in how the investigation unfolded.

"We're going to be really cautious about the Nepal thing because it's a politically sensitive issue for our partners in Haiti," said CDC commander Dr. Scott Dowell.

The CDC agrees that the movement of pathogens from one part of the world to another is an important public health issue. Its scientists are working on samples of bacteria from 13 infected Haitians to sequence the cholera strain's genome, the results of which will be posted on a public database.

But the U.S. government agency has several caveats. First, it has not taken environmental samples or tested the Nepalese soldiers. Second, it will not go public with its analysis until all its studies are complete. And third, it may not get enough information to say exactly how cholera got into the country.

"The bottom line is we may never know," Dowell said.

The WHO has repeatedly said the same.

"At some time we will do further investigation, but it's not a priority right now," WHO spokeswoman Fadela Chaib said this week.

But Mulet now says Farmer was right all along, and that he is consulting with experts, including a French epidemiologist who met with him this week to discuss how to investigate the Nepalese base.

"We agree with him there has to be a thorough investigation of how it came, how it happened and how it spread. ... There's no differences there with Dr. Paul Farmer at all."

As recently as Nov. 10, the mission's spokesman told Haitian reporters that the U.N. was not undertaking any other investigations because the concerns were not "well-founded." The head of the mission said that is not the case today.

"One thing I can assure you: There has been no cover up - there has been no cover up from our side - and we have done everything we can to investigate," Mulet said. "Eventually we will find out what happened and how it happened."

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Associated Press writers Michael Stobbe in Atlanta and Edith Lederer at the United Nations contributed to this report.